One of Donald Trump’s most auspicious campaign pledges was to renegotiate bad trade deals inherited from his predecessors. Trump was true to his word at the recent G-7 summit. He lambasted the leaders of Canada, France, Germany, Italy, Japan and the United Kingdom for what he called their “ridiculous and unacceptable” tariffs, ad valorem taxes, on American goods.

The U.S. is “like the piggy bank that everybody is robbing,” he told them. “And that ends.”

He announced plans to proceed with tariffs on aluminum and steel products from Canada, the European Union (EU), and Mexico. Last April, he unveiled similar plans for increased tariffs on some 1,300 Chinese imported goods, including aluminum and steel. These levies will raise the price of imported products in the U.S. market.

Some of Trump’s grievances are justified. Canada insulates its dairy industry from foreign competition with a 270% tariff on imported milk. The EU imposes protectionist tariffs on U.S. auto imports. But his critics worry that the president’s bombastic unilateralism will backfire, costing U.S. consumers more money, and American workers their jobs. After all, America’s trade partners can act unilaterally, too. Both China and our western allies have threatened or already responded with higher tariffs on a wide range of American goods. As Nick Giordano, a pork industry spokesman, told the Register, “There’s blood on the floor, make no mistake about that.” U.S. pork producers face some $2.2 billion in losses this year from Chinese and Mexican tariffs. Giordano concluded, “We’re being patient. We’re being patriots. But ultimately, we got to be able to trade.”

Cynics warn that Trump is deliberately undermining the global rules-based trade system. The U.S. was the progenitor of that system, which was put in place after World War II and is currently administered by the World Trade Organization (WTO), based in Geneva, Switzerland. The U.S. has been the system’s primary beneficiary, evolving over the decades into the world’s dominant economic power. As Washington Post columnist Robert J. Samuelson sees it, “Trump has embarked on a giant marketing campaign to convince us that foreigners — their exports — are to blame for our economic problems. It’s a seductive appeal to nationalism whose main defect is that it’s mostly untrue.”

New York Times columnist Paul Krugman, a Nobel economics laureate, agrees. According to Krugman, “the fight Trump is picking with our allies isn’t about any real conflict of interest — because they are not, in fact, doing the things he accuses them of doing.” Krugman goes on, “No, Canada and Europe aren’t imposing ‘massive tariffs’ on U.S. goods: A vast majority of U.S. exports enter Canada tariff-free, and the average European tariff is only 3 percent. These are simple facts, not disputable issues.”

Trump’s tariffs are, in effect, countervailing duties that violate global trade law. Under the WTO Charter, member states negotiate their WTO “bindings,” meaning the maximum ad valorem duties they can impose on imported goods. These negotiations emphasize sensitivity to each nation’s domestic political pressures. Governments can be constrained by influential industries that lobby for protection from foreign products. In the U.S., for example, 25% tariffs on sugar and foreign trucks, and a 163% levy on imported peanuts, set high barriers to imports.

The WTO Charter establishes a dispute settlement body (DSB) and procedures for aggrieved nations to follow in prosecuting complaints against other member states for unfair trade practices. In each case, a panel of independent experts hears and makes an objective assessment of the facts presented by the opposing sides. If consultations fail, the panel’s ruling binds the offending nation to cease its misconduct, or face sanctions in the form of proportional, countervailing duties which only then is the aggrieved nation authorized to impose. The losing party may appeal the panel’s ruling to an appellate body.

Trump has offered no long-term trade strategy. A better approach would be to work cooperatively with our trading partners to reform the existing system.